Adventures in Candy Land
by mia101
Summary: A night of paperwork becomes more interesting when Booth and Brennan find themselves playing a game of chance.


_**yes, yes, i am so bad. i'm writing another freakin' oneshot when i haven't finished my story OR, more importantly, another fic for a different show and board that people have been following for the better part of a year. but my smutty side could not be denied today (ha, that rhymed) and so this little drabble came out. hope you enjoy. xoxo mia**_

**_also, on a side note, miss jamie (SSJL) and i have decided to collaborate for y'all, and have a story in the works, so look out for us. :) if you want to add us to your author alerts, we're callin' ourselves 5SteamboatsShippingCo. We'll be in a nearby port soon... SMOOCHES._**

**Adventures in Candy Land.**

**a one shot**

Seeley Booth scrawls his signature quickly at the bottom of the page, holding it up with one hand as his partner walks past him, plucking it from his fingers. She settles back next to him on the floor in front of his couch, her back against the distressed leather, passing him a bottle of beer, and his fingers curl around the chilled glass.

"This one needs your signature," she says, tugging another sheet out from under the stack in front of her. "And initials on that line."

He does as he's told, sighing heavily. "We almost done here? We've been at this for over two hours."

She lifts her head from her own paperwork, arching a delicate brow. "Do you have something you'd rather be doing?"

"Than paperwork?" he asks amusedly. "Anything."

The corners of her lips tilt up at his comment, and she shakes her head slightly, taking a sip of her own beer. "It's not that bad, Booth."

He watches her as she picks up her pen, glancing back down at the pile of papers in front of her, and he sighs. Some of her hair (_what's that color called? Mahogany?_) has pulled free from her ponytail, and frames her face as she concentrates, her brow furrowing slightly.

Glancing back down at his own stack, her rubs the back of his neck wearily, noting that the page on the top requires far more effort than simply his signature. He lets out a heavy sigh, and she lifts her head again, this time focusing on the items Parker has stacked half-hazardly on the shelves of his coffee table.

"What's Candy Land?"

He almost chokes on the sip of beer he's swallowing. "What??"

She gives him a look that says he should be accustomed to this sort of thing by now, but he shakes his head in amazement. "Bones, you haven't heard of Candy Land? I know you had a less than traditional childhood, but your parents were still around until you were fifteen – this is a game for little kids."

She shrugs, pulling the box from the stack of games and puzzles. "Russ and I had games – I remember one that had four colors and had something to do with pursuit, and another with a man that had plastic pants that you put insects inside –"

He laughs, scooting closer to her as she examines the box. "_Ants in the Pants. _And _Sorry!_"

"For what?' she murmurs, her eyes examining the cover of the game.

"That's what the game's called, Bones. The one with the four colors."

"Oh." She holds up the box. "What's this game about?"

He laughs at her serious question. "About? It's about finding the lost king of Candy Land."

"The lost king?" She turns to look again at the game in her hands. "So it's a mystery game?"

He can barely contain his amusement at the seriousness of her questions. "Bones, this game is for children between the ages of two and five. It's not exactly complex. You draw cards with colors on them that tell you to move forward towards the end."

She seems disappointed somehow, and he hates when she has that look on her face. "Oh."

He takes it from her suddenly, clearing some of their paperwork from the top of the coffee table. "Come on, let's play."

"But you just said it was for children from the age of –"

"That's who it's designed for," he chuckles. "Doesn't mean we can't play, too."

He sees her eyeing the stacks of paper still surrounding them and he sighs. "Come on, Bones. One game of Candy Land, then we'll finish paperwork."

She looks at him suspiciously. "You promise?"

"Cross my heart," he says honestly, tracing his finger in an X over his chest.

She relents, and he feels his mouth stretching into a wide grin at her agreement. The idea that she's never played this game troubles him somehow, and he sets up the board carefully, explaining to her the basic points of the game.

She nods seriously, eyeing the board. "So it's essentially, if the cards were to be re-shuffled after each draw, a Markov Chain."

He looks at her in amazement. "Huh?"

She sets her beer down, glancing up at him. "A Markov chain is a discrete-time stochastic process with the Markov property."

He steals her usual line, shaking his head. "I have no idea what on earth that means."

"Having the Markov property means that, given the present state, future states are independent of the past states. The description of the present state fully captures all the information that could influence the future evolution of the process. Future states will be reached through a probabilistic process instead of a deterministic one."

"English, Bones," he pleads.

She considers this for a moment, glancing tilting her head, her wheels turning. "Think of a coin toss. Each time you throw the coin, you still retain a fifty-fifty chance of throwing a head or tails – it doesn't really matter what you threw beforehand, the probability remains the same." She takes a sip of beer. "Essentially, it means the future is conditionally independent of the past. Nothing that has happened in the past can influence or determine the outcome in the future."

She smiles, glancing back down at the game. " The future is all possibilities."

For some reason, her words cause him to shiver, and he shuffles the cards in his hands, trying to shake it off. "Only you could manage to make Candy Land so complicated, Bones."

She shrugs. "I don't think so. I've simply determined that there is no strategy or skill involved in Candy Land – the outcome of the game is determined only by the cards."

He smiles at her reasoning. Somewhere along the line, her babble has become sweetly endearing to him rather than irritating. He finds in some ways it's even comforting, and he supposes that has something to do with the straightforward tone she uses when he appears puzzled, as well as the fact that she continues to speak in such a manner despite his regular confusion. She never seems to assume he's too stupid to understand her.

"You go first, Bones," he says, pointing at the stack of cards. "What color do you want to be?"

She considers this for a fair amount of time, which he finds tremendously amusing. Finally plucking the blue plastic kid from the inside of the box, she places it at the start. Flipping over a card, she stares blankly at the one red square.

"Move your piece to the red square," he urges gently.

They draw a few more cards, continuing to move along the board, and he briefly wonders if something so simplistic will bore her, but she seems at ease and curious each time she moves forward. And, after nearly three years together, he hasn't missed her competitive nature. Even if she's determined there's no skill involved, he knows she wants to win.

"Did you play this a lot as a kid?" she asks, smiling as she holds up a card with two purple squares triumphantly.

He grins at her excitement. "Yeah, with a neighbor girl named Sarah." He tilts his head, considering. "One might say that was where my gambling days originated."

She frowns. "How so?"

He grinned. "I was a betting man, even back then. I tried to wager with her."

She seems amused by this idea. "What were the stakes? Pennies?"

He scoffs at her suggestion. "A kiss."

Her eyes widen slightly. "A kiss? If what, you won?"

"Yep."

Moving her piece forward again after drawing a yellow square, she glances at him. "So, did she kiss you?"

He sighs. "No, I lost the game and the girl."

"Why wouldn't you just kiss her anyway? Or ask if you could?"

He looks at her in surprise. "Because… because I just didn't. The game would have made it okay."

"I don't understand."

He studies her for a moment, watching her peel back the label on her beer bottle, her legs crossed under her from where she sits in font of the coffee table.

"Come on, Bones. You know what I mean … if we were playing the game, it was kind of a joke. And I was giving her the opportunity to kiss me back, without admitting she wanted to." He shrugs, taking a sip of his beer. "It's what kids do," he says nonchalantly.

She seems to consider this seriously, and he finds himself distracted by the way the lamplight is glowing against the skin of her exposed arms in her short-sleeve shirt. She'd taken off her knee-high boots when she'd arrived, and was left only in a slim-fitting skirt and knee-high stockings. It's simple clothing, nothing too revealing or particularly alluring about it, but on her he finds it almost devastatingly sexy.

"Do adults do that?" she asks, interrupting his thought process.

"Sure," he murmurs, drawing a card and avoiding her eyes. "People play games, Bones. It's human nature."

"They don't usually make bets for kisses, however," she says carefully.

"I imagine sometimes they do."

She's quiet for a moment. "Or they use blackmail?"

He snaps his eyes up to hers at the word, the kiss they'd shared under the mistletoe instantly flooding his memory. "Sure," he croaks. "Or that."

She nods slowly. "I suppose I could have just told Caroline no."

He flushes, pointing to the deck of cards but she ignores him. "You wanted Christmas for your family. It's alright, I wasn't upset by it."

She's quiet again, and he's finding it unnerving. He's watching her chest rise and fall slowly with her breathing, her breasts straining slightly against the fabric of her white button-up shirt, and he forces his eyes away when he sees the slight pebbling of her nipples under the cotton.

"Maybe I was curious," she says slowly. "And that's why I didn't tell her no."

He practically chokes on the mouthful of beer he's just taken.

She sighs, reaching for a card, holding it up in confusion to find a picture rather than a colored square. He taps the board, showing her she gets to skip ahead and she moves her piece to where he's pointed.

"I should have just told her no, I suppose. You must have felt like you had to, so that my family could have the trailer."

"I could have told you no," he says, shifting awkwardly on his side of the coffee table.

"You tried to," she says simply. "And I insisted." She blushes slightly. "I practically bullied you into it."

He isn't sure if he should let this conversation continue, but then she looks up in his eyes and he sees warmth there, an innocent questioning. She's really trying to figure this out. She reaches for another card distractedly, simply staring at the red square she draws.

"Maybe I was giving you the opportunity," he says quietly, setting his beer down, using his words from earlier.

She looks up at him sharply, her eyes shining. She doesn't speak, just watches him, and he feels heat start to climb up from under the collar of his shirt, and he worries he's blushing a deep, embarrassed pink.

"So, don't worry about it," he says clearing his throat. "If I really hadn't wanted you to, I wouldn't have let you."

_That's an understatement, _he thinks. He'd reacted so sharply when she'd explained Caroline's request because he'd immediately been worried she'd be able to tell just how much he'd been thinking of kissing her over the years. Essentially, he's thought of it at least once a day if not every time they find themselves alone – like now, for example.

"Did you want me to?" she asks suddenly, and his heart begins to pound at her words. His back is against the couch, and suddenly he fears the coffee table alone is not enough distance between them.

Should he lie? Should he downplay the whole thing, make a joke? Distract her with the game, ask if she's getting hungry and wants to order food? Glancing up at her again, he finds her cheeks are flushed sweetly, her eyes shimmering as she waits for his answer. And he doesn't want to ruin the moment, to scare her into leaving, but at that moment the tip of her tongue sneaks out, sliding over her bottom lip, and his whole body aches at the simple sight. Fuck, she's beautiful.

"Yes."

Her eyes glitter in the low light of the living room when he finally answers her, and she nods slowly. He feels trapped between the table and the couch, torn between fleeing to the kitchen to grab them another beer and taking a deep breath or to just sit silently and see what she does with this new information.

He finds himself thinking that despite her love of procedure and process, she somehow manages to be anything but predictable.

She sets her beer down, and oh, _shit_, she's crawling towards him, settling on her knees next to his left hip. His mild anxiety and slight discomfort at the direction this has taken is swiftly turning into full-fledged panic, and he prays for his body to not betray him, to behave.

"Do you… do you want me to now?" she asks quietly, tipping her head, still managing to look innocent and curious.

He shakes his head side to side, but his words contradict his actions. "Yes, but… no. No, you can't. We can't."

She frowns slightly. "We've done it before."

"That was different," he manages. "We had… an audience."

She nods slowly. "So things would be…different…?"

He bobs his head up and down, trying to hang onto some semblance of normalcy and control. "There's a line, Bones."

"Mmmm, yes…" she murmurs, sitting back on her heels. "That's right."

He almost doesn't recognize her in this moment. She's watching him carefully, as if he's under a microscope, but her eyes are shimmering with something more than curiosity. This isn't the way she looks at bones, relics… evidence. This is different.

"Aren't you curious as to what it would be like?" she asks suddenly, tilting her head. "I am."

"I know what it would be like," he mutters. It would be too much, too greedy of him to allow. He can resist because there's still a part he's holding back. He hasn't touched her in that way, he hasn't crossed that line. He allowed her to kiss him in her office, yes, but he had been hyper-aware of the district attorney's presence, of the work environment. Almost to the point where he'd nearly missed the slightest touch of her tongue, or the sweet mint of her breath.

Almost.

There's no puckish attorney in his living room to keep him in check tonight, no glass walls of her office to give a show to the entire lab at The Jeffersonian. And that's precisely why she can't touch him now.

But she does. Her small hand drops to his thigh, the heat passing through the fabric of his jeans, and as she tilts her head again, he makes the mistake of meeting her eyes.

They tell a story, a story he's been waiting for so long to hear from her. He's been wanting to touch her since the moment they met, wanting to wipe the condescending look off her face those first few months by sliding his hand up her thigh and under her skirts, wanting to surprise that smirk right off her lips. Wanting to pin her up against walls, wanting to cradle her close as cries, to press his body against hers.

He imagines so many things, things that keep his mind swimming at night when he tries to sleep, when he's trying to work or simply drive down the street. He imagines her stretched out in front of him, naked, his face between her legs as she throws her head back against the pillows. Temperance Brennan is full of passion; it's locked inside her, just beneath the surface. And on occasion he's allowed himself to think that maybe, just maybe, he's in possession of the right key.

And the story he's reading right now, the story he sees in her eyes, is that all those things he's fantasized about…? She might have let him.

"Bones," he whispers. "We shouldn't."

She nods as if accepting his answer, but that damn alluring tongue of hers slips out again to moisten her bottom lip and in one fell swoop, he's lost, and his hand is suddenly reaching out, cupping the back of her head, and their lips are meeting.

And she's falling into him, caught off balance when he's dragging her to him. Her mouth opens in surprise, and he can taste her, can taste the malt on her breath from the beer and a flavor he imagines is simply Temperance. She clutches onto his shoulders as she tumbles into his lap, and he captures her upper lip between his own.

He can feel so much of her against him, a body he's spent so long wondering about. Her ass is snuggled between his hips; the bare skin of her arm is under one of his hands as his other finally slides into her hair, tugging the elastic that holds it in its ponytail free. And her mouth is hot and open against his, and as he caresses her with his, a strangled sound escapes her and he hardens beneath her and thrusts his tongue deeply into her mouth, searching for her own.

She's struggling to get closer to him, her body squirming in his lap, and without thinking, he places his hands on the edge of her skirt and shoves it quickly up to her hips so she can straddle his lap. He groans at the contact, at the heat he feels from her body, and their lips break apart for a moment as their eyes meet, their breath coming in sharp gasps.

"Still curious?" he rasps. "Or does that explain it for you, what will happen if we do this?"

Her chest is heaving from where she sits, and his eyes drop, and with her this close he sees a hint of skin in the opening at the top of her shirt. He wants to rip it off of her, wants to see if her skin tastes as sexy and intoxicating as her mouth does, but he waits, because if she pulls back, he'll have the power to stop all this now.

Her eyelids are at half-mast, heavy with her passion, and she looks somewhat dazed, as if she wasn't expecting something like this. But he's known, known all along that he's a fool for Temperance Brennan, that he's helpless in her presence.

And when she answers his question, it isn't with words. Instead, she dips her head down and her mouth is open hotly against his throat, her teeth nipping and her tongue bathing, and he groans, his cock swelling in his jeans against her.

Her small hands are suddenly at the hem of his t-shirt, and she pulls quickly to tug the cotton eagerly over his head, tossing to the side without a second glance. She immediately brings her mouth back to his skin, her lips falling this time along his collarbone, and her hands slide up his sides, caressing, tracing the lines of his torso.

He's so overwhelmed he can barely think. Only minutes earlier he'd been staring at colored squares on cards, playing a child's game, and now he has his partner in his lap, so real beneath his hands. And he wants more – to hell with the fucking line.

His hands fumble for the tiny, fabric covered buttons at the front of her shirt and he quickly becomes frustrated as he tries to work them through the strange, tiny loops. Damn women's clothing and all its complications.

She's making a damp path along his throat to his jaw with her lips, and they hover over his, breathlessly.

"I don't really like this shirt," she pants.

Surprised, he meets her eyes and understands. He grabs both sides of her shirt with both hands. Her gasp as he jerks the fabric apart only gets him hotter, and as the tiny buttons fly in all directions, he feels a damp heat against his crotch that comes from between her legs. It's such an unbelievably sexy response from her that his breath catches in his own chest.

He swallows thickly as he raises his hands to slide the ruined shirt from her shoulders, revealing smooth, golden skin and white lace. He cups a breast in one of his palms, and feels her nipple harden immediately underneath his hand and he shudders. Now it's his turn to bring his lips to her neck.

He loves the way her hands feel on him, loves that they seem as urgent to become familiar with his body as he is with hers. It tells him, simply by the way she touches him, just how long she's wanted to.

_She's wanted to._ She's wanted him, maybe even dreamed of him as much as he's dreamed of her. The thought makes him dizzy as he drags a lace cup down from her breast, revealing her skin to him.

"God, I…" He can't even speak with the way she's arching into him, can't find words to describe all the ways he wants to touch her, the ways he wants to make her cry out and scream.

He wants to see Temperance Brennan lose control… for him.

He rolls with her suddenly, taking them to the floor so that she's beneath him, and his shoulder knocks into the coffee table, the game pieces and cards scattering to settle with her shirt buttons on the floor. His mouth fastens to the tip of her breast and she's crying out, her fingers flying into his hair, arching into him.

For the briefest of moments, his fog-filled brain realizes what it is they're doing, and he struggles for a moment, but then she yanks hard on a fistful of his hair and he allows her to drag his mouth back to her own, gasping against her.

And holy fuck, she's suddenly grabbing his hand and pushing it under the hem of her skirt, guiding his fingers between her legs, and he groans into her mouth, feeling just how hot she really is for him. He slips beneath the cotton of her panties, caressing her, and her hips undulate and she breaks free from his mouth, her head falling back.

It's the sexiest thing he's ever seen, her spread out for him like this. He sinks his fingers inside of her, beginning a rhythm that's only lived in his daydreams until now. Her eyes are shut tightly, her head tipped back, her lips parted as she gasps, and her breasts heave as she struggles for her breath. When he catches her nipple again, laving it with his tongue, her head starts to toss from side to side, and she's moaning his name, his _first name_, and it's almost enough to push him over the edge, simply the sound of her calling out for him hoarsely.

She surprises him, tipping over the edge quickly, her legs tightening to clutch his hand between her thighs, and he moves again to her mouth, sweeping his tongue inside to catch her cries.

But his fingers have barely left her skin before she's tugging at his belt, dragging it from its loops in his jeans, and he helps her push the pants down and off, kicking them out of the way before settling back between her legs.

"Temperance," he rasps, catching her hand as she's about to pull down his boxers. "Are you sure?"

She nods, gripping his shoulders, digging her nails into his skin. "Don't stop."

He drops his head to her neck, trying to catch a breath and control himself, and she arches up against him, her hips cradling him and he groans. "I have to… I don't keep condoms in the living room."

"I'm safe," she whispers. "I promise. But if you –"

"So am I," he breathes, shuddering at the damp skin at her throat and the scent of her surrounding him.

"Then stay," she pleads, wrapping her arms more tightly around him.

"Oh, god, baby," he moans, pressing his lips to her jaw as he thrusts deeply inside her, sinking into her warmth. It nearly stops his heart, this sensation of falling, and he clenches his eyes shut, grabbing her mouth with his own.

He's slow at first, his own body trembling so much that he's worried his arms won't hold and he'll collapse against her. But she becomes more insistent, arching against him, rolling her hips easily beneath him, holding him inside her more tightly each time he thrusts. And soon he can't hold back, and she winds her legs around his back and gasps as he races with her towards what is sure to be the most powerful orgasm of his life.

"Oh, _god_, Temperance!" he cries out, his elbows sinking into the throw rug, his large hands cupping the back of her head, tugging her towards him. "Oh my god!"

Her nails dig into the skin of his back and she chokes out his name, her hair damp beneath his fingers, her mouth searching out his own, and then he's falling with her, tipping over the edge off a cliff with one last powerful thrust.

His eyes close tightly, his chest heaving as he pulls her against him, and he buries his face in the tangle of her hair.

She's still trembling beneath him, her legs wrapped tightly around his hips, her fingertips pressing into the muscles of his back, and she presses her own face against the side of his, her breath warm and sweet next to his ear.

And when he finally lifts his head he sees the pieces of Candy Land scattered around them. A path of colored squares has led him into the arms of his partner, but unlike the board game of his childhood, this has nothing to do with chance – this moment has been building since the day they met. And he smiles as he remembers her words:

_**The future is all possibilities**_


End file.
